Sarah Ettritch's Blog, page 32

Yes, CAPTCHA, I'm a Human. Really.

I was trying to create an account at a website today and ran into a situation that always has me shaking my head.

You've all experienced CAPTCHAs, a series of letters and/or numbers that you're asked to type into a form to prove that you're a human and not a bot. Well, occasionally I can't read them, and I'm probably not the only one. I don't have this problem often. The ones in this Wikipedia CAPTCHA article are clear to me, though I can see how one of the lower three could be confusing.

But t...

Web Hosting: HawkHost

Back in January when I posted that I'd switched web hosts, I didn't name the new host. I wanted to be with them at least a month to see how things went. The answer is: great!

Shopping for a web host can be a daunting experience; there are so many of them. What I'm most interested in is uptime, performance, support, and the available tools (like cPanel and script installers). Just about everybody out there claims 99.9% uptime, great performance, great support, and great tools. Searching on...

Fantasy Story Progress Meter

I've added a meter to the blog's sidebar to track my progress on the fantasy story I'm writing. My goal is to finish the first draft by December 31st, 2010, or at least that's what I said at the beginning of the year. I also said that I was going to seriously start looking for a job.

I sat down at the computer Monday morning (Feb 1st), surfed to Monster.ca, and searched for jobs that match my skills. There were quite a few postings, but as I skimmed them, my heart wasn't in it. I just don't...

Yes, Our Milk Comes in Bags

It must have been a slow news day yesterday (though our federal member of parliament, Jack Layton, announced that he has prostate cancer—get well soon, Jack!). The front page of the Toronto Star had an article about a YouTube video regarding milk bags.

Like the woman in the video, I wasn't aware that Americans (and Canadians west of Ontario) don't drink milk out of bags. I grew up in Quebec and now live in Ontario, both of which offer milk in bags, in addition to cartons. So drinking milk...

A Couple of Publishing Notes

First off, I stumbled across a new organization, the Association of Independent Authors. Time will tell whether it gains momentum or the URL leads to a parked domain in a year. I'm wondering what it will offer that organizations like SPAN and IBPA don't already cover.

I checked out the membership levels and find it odd that if you prove to be an asset to the independent author community and hence earn the privilege of a Fellow membership, you're rewarded with a higher subscription fee! Unless ...